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Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 1 Transcript of PBS Video -‐ The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Part 1 – The Birth of Democracy 0:00 – Series Introduction: The Significance of the Greeks The Greeks. A people glorious and arrogant, valiant and headstrong. These were the men and women who laid the very foundations of Western Civilization. Their monuments still recall perhaps the most extraordinary two centuries in history, a time that saw the birth of science and politics, philosophy, literature and drama. [A time that] saw the creation of art and architecture we still strive to equal. And the Greeks achieved all this against a backdrop of war and conflict, for they would vanquish armies, navies, and empires many times their size, and build an empire of their own which stretched across the Mediterranean. For one brief moment, the mighty warships of the Greeks ruled the seas, their prosperity unequalled. These achievements, achievements which still shape our world, were made not by figures lost to time, but by men and women whose voices we can still hear, whose lives we can follow, men such as Themistocles, one of the world’s greatest military generals; Pericles, a politician of vision and genius; and Socrates, the most famous philosopher in history. This is the story of these astonishing individuals, of the rise and fall of a civilization that changed the world. 2:35 – Episode Introduction: The Revolution 508 BC. Five centuries before the birth of Christ. In a town called Athens, a tiny city in mainland Greece, pandemonium ruled the streets. The ordinary people had turned on their rulers, demanding freedom from centuries of oppression. At this moment, one man looked on, an Athenians nobleman named Cleisthenes. Cleisthenes had been brought up from birth to be a ruler, to look down on these common people with contempt. But this one night would be a turning point in his life, in the history of Greece, and in the history of civilization. In a flash of inspiration, Cleisthenes would see that these ordinary people should have freedom, a chance to shape their own destiny, to govern themselves. And with this decision Cleisthenes would set his fellow Greeks on the path to empire. 4:37 – Cleisthenes’ Upbringing in Sixth Century Athens Historians estimate that Cleisthenes was born around 570 BC. He was hardly the type to become a man of the people, for he had been born into one of the richest families in Greece, his home a palace by the standards of the day. Cleisthenes’ family were called the Alcmaeonids. They were a wealthy and long-‐established political dynasty. Josiah Ober: “He grew up in a world of great privilege, a world in which men of an elite background would expect to have certain privileges just given to them.” The origin of Cleisthenes’ family fortune is a tale typical of ancient Greece, a curious story lost half in myth. The first Greek historian, Herodotus, claims that Cleisthenes’ grandfather once performed a favor for a great king named Croesus, a king of immeasurable wealth. In return, he was told he could take a gift of gold dust from Croesus’ treasury. But according to Herodotus, Cleisthenes’ ancestor couldn’t restrain himself just to loading up his pockets. He stuffed every orifice of his body, his ears and his mouth, with shimmering gold dust, and then poured more
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 2 over his head and hair. And Herodotus writes that King Croesus was so amused by this bravado that he let him take all the gold he was carrying and as much again. But whatever the source of Cleisthenes’s family wealth, there was no doubt that they had used it effectively, to gain power. From his earliest days, the young Cleisthenes was taught that he was an aristocrat, ancient Greek for a member of the ruling class. In the sixth century BC, these aristocrats controlled everything that happened in Cleisthenes’ hometown, a small settlement called Athens. Athens lay in the center of a Mediterranean peninsula, which Cleisthenes knew as Hellas, and which we now call Greece. In the days of Cleisthenes’ youth, it would have seemed impossible that this city would soon rule an empire. Paul Cartledge: “It is certainly not what we call a city. Forget Manhattan. Athens in the center has public buildings, but otherwise, I think one should imagine more village style of accommodation and habitation.” The town was built around the Acropolis, a steep-‐sided outcrop of bare rock, a stronghold from which the Athenians could fend off the attacks of their neighbors. In the narrow streets surrounding the Acropolis, huddled the simple homes of farmers and tradesmen. Keith Hopwood: “Most of the houses were perhaps mud brick, and there was no sewage, no waste collection. We would find it very much like wandering through a third world village. You would certainly be able to smell Athens as you approached it.” For men, life was passed working in the fields, or in basic crafts. Women spent their days cloistered in the home, cooking, spinning, and weaving. For these Athenians, reading and writing was a rare skill. There was nothing we might call science or medicine. Life expectancy at birth was less than fifteen years. Paul Cartledge: “I think the idea that ancient Greek life was nasty, brutish and short would be entirely accurate. Certainly life was extremely tough.” This was no society of equals. The common Athenians lived under the yoke of the aristocrats, men such as Cleisthenes’ father. Josiah Ober: “The traditional political milieu from which Cleisthenes arose was one in which all effective political power was being dominated by a relative handful of people. The possibility that the ordinary people of Athens would actually matter was the furthest thing from the mind of the traditional Greek elites.” For the Greek writer Aristotle, this was a world riven by injustice: “ The whole country was in the hands of a few people. The hardest and bitterest thing for the masses was their state of serfdom, not that they weren’t discontented with anything else, for to speak generally, they had no part, no share in anything. ” Josiah Ober: “Athens was in a sense turned against itself. You had one part of the population, the aristocratic elite, holding power at the expense of the rest of the citizen population.”
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 4 understood why the Spartans were so willing to die, because death was as nothing to eating their food.” The Spartans were ruthless expansionists. By Cleisthenes’ time, they had conquered all of the surrounding regions, more than four thousand square miles, and they had reduced these conquered populations to a slave labor class, known as the helots. The helots were forced to work in the fields for their Spartan overlords, and they were ruled by an iron fist. Paul Cartledge: “The Spartans every year declared war on the helots, and the point of this, of course, was partly to reinforce their sense of identity as a warrior community, but also, rather calculatingly, to make it legitimate to kill a helot. And helot culling, as opposed to killing, was a regular practice.” If there was any part of Cleisthenes’ Greece that looked likely to build an empire, it was Sparta. For the rest of the Greeks, they were a threat, always on the horizon. 17:40 – The Importance of Homer and the Heroic Ideal This was the world of Cleisthenes’ childhood. Brought up a member of a self-‐interested elite, in a state that was only a third-‐rate power, it was an unlikely beginning for the man who would set Greece on the path to empire. But then Cleisthenes had always been a man fired by a dream, the uniquely Greek vision of the greatness a man could achieve. If there was one thing that inspired Cleisthenes and his fellow Greeks, it was their stories, ancient tales and myths. The country was continually criss-‐crossed by hundreds of traveling bards, who recited these stories to whoever would pay. These were people who, in an age without writing, had memorized over a million lines of poetry Edith Hall: “It’s very easy to underestimate the power of the human memory when we live in a culture like ours that has so many means of recording things. Before the Greeks got the alphabet, they seem to have been able to remember vast tracts of poetry, and pass it on over the generations, in a quite remarkable way.” These traveling bards would have regularly visited the Athens of Cleisthenes’ childhood, and their stories would have influenced and shaped him from his earliest days. The most famous tales these singers told are still preserved, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Composed by the legendary poet Homer, these works tell of mighty battles and epic struggles, and at their heart lie the heroes, mythical figures whose strength had won them power and glory. Paul Cartledge: “Heroes, almost by definition, were doers of great deeds. The more heads you knocked, and the more young women you deflowered, the greater your heroic status.” Images of heroes are found all over Greek art. These warlike figures, valiant, beautiful, determined to seize victory at all costs, were the Greek ideal.
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 5 Paul Cartledge: “The heroic ideal was absolutely central, for the whole world of Greek culture. Heroes were terrific achievers, and one might hope to achieve heroic status by modeling oneself on the deeds of, for example, Achilles.” Achilles was the archetypal Greek hero. As a child, he had been offered the choice between a long, ordinary life or a brief burst of glory on the battlefield. Achilles’ choice meant an early death, and an eternal fame. This, the vision of a hero, the ideal of the man of action, was the model that Cleisthenes was brought up to follow. To pursue a life of greatness and glory, won through strength and valor, to seize power and victory for himself, and himself alone, to become a real life hero. 23:00 – Pisistratus and the Emergence of Athens But Cleisthenes was not the only one to take the tales of the mythical heroes to heart. Josiah Ober: “There’s a big change in the middle of the sixth century, when one man seizes control of the government as, what the Greeks call, a tyrant.” The story of how this tyrant, or sole ruler, came to power has been preserved by the historian Herodotus. One day, a man of dignified and noble bearing, rode into the city of Athens. Beside him stood a tall and beautiful woman, a woman he claimed was the patron goddess of Athens, Athena. This dashing figure demanded that he be given the rule of Athens, for like one of Homer’s heroes, he had the protection of a goddess. Surprisingly, he was welcomed by the Athenians as their new ruler, despite the fact that the goddess was simply a particularly tall girl from a neighboring village. The heroic figure was an ordinary man called Pisistratus, Cleisthenes’ own brother-‐in-‐law. Keith Hopwood: “Pisistratus was, I think, an excellent politician. He was a man without doubt with an eye for the main chance.” But as he consolidated his rule, it became clear that Pisistratus had far greater ambitions than simply gaining power. Josiah Ober: “Pisistratus was an extremely intelligent man. He clearly understood that if he was going to maintain control of Athens, if he was going to be able to consolidate his rule and pass it on to his sons, which is clearly his ambition, he would have to find allies.” Pisistratus took an extraordinary step. He turned to the common Athenians for support, undermining the whole hierarchy of aristocrats and commoners that had endured for centuries. Pisistratus reduced taxes and introduced free loans to allow the people to build up their farms. And by offering the Athenians the chance for prosperity, Pisistratus began to transform his city. Victor Davis Hanson: “With the rise of Pisistratus, we start to see the success of agrarianism accelerated in Athens, and that’s going to be a kernel that’s going to grow and grow and grow in the ensuing two centuries. And one of the results of that is that we see more vines and olives. Olive trees manifest themselves in every aspect of Greek culture. Economically they allow a
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 7 “ Euthymdes, son of Polias, drew this .” And then underneath, “ And I bet Euphronios couldn’t have managed it. ” For the first time in their history, the ordinary Athenians had tasted freedom, and they had shown their capacity for extraordinary achievement. 32:00 – The Tyranny of Hippias Cleisthenes grew to manhood under Pisistratus’ rule, and he saw how Athens changed. His home had turned from a more or less rural settlement into an international economic power. But Pisistratus’ rule of benevolent tyranny was not to last forever. In the year 527 BC, he died and was laid to rest here, in the Athenian graveyard. His son, Hippias, took over. At first Hippias followed in his father’s footsteps, ruling Athens with a fair hand. But soon the Athenians discovered the perilous nature of tyranny. Historians tell us that, in the year 514 BC, Hippias’ brother was murdered. Aggrieved and bitter, the tyrant’s behavior completely changed. Hippias not only executed the murderers, but cruelly tortured one of their wives to death as well. Aristotle described the ruler’s slide toward madness: “After this, the tyranny became much, much harsher, for Hippias ordered numerous executions and sentences of exile in revenge for his brother, and he became embittered and suspicious of everybody.” The freedoms the common Athenians had gained under Pisistratus were now stripped away. Keith Hopwood: “There was now a real tyranny in the modern sense in Athens. Pisistratus had come into power for a cause. His son now had no cause other than self-‐preservation.” Life for Cleisthenes had now become increasingly dangerous. For the paranoid dictator knew that it was from here, from the aristocrats, that the greatest threat to his power could come. And Hippias’ fears would be proved right. Keith Hopwood: “With the hardening of the attitude of the tyranny, the time now seemed to be ripe.” Cleisthenes decided to take his first great gamble. He would try to overthrow Hippias, to gain power for himself and his family. Keith Hopwood: “Cleisthenes’ ambition to make his mark upon the scene is something that of course would have been impressed on him from a very early age, in the stories of the heroes, of their need to succeed, and to strike at the right time. For Cleisthenes himself it would be an achievement.” Cleisthenes assembled a conspiracy to overthrow the tyrant. Hippias was trapped in his stronghold, captured, and banished from Athens forever. The year was 520 BC. Cleisthenes was now one of the most powerful figures in Athens. He had lived up to the heroic myths he’d been brought up to follow since childhood. But Greek society was changing. The heroic urge that drove Cleisthenes was no longer reserved for the elite. It was now permeating every level of Greek society.
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 8 37:20 – The Olympics and the Heroic Ideal This is Olympia, in southern Greece. Here, once every four years, men from across the Greek world would gather to compete in a vast contest of athletic skill. This was the ancestor of the modern Olympic games. For the ancient travel writer Pausanias, the Olympics were the highlight of any visit to Greece. “Many are the sights to be seen in Greece, and many are the wonders to be heard, but on nothing does heaven bestow more care than the Olympic games.” The Olympic games were founded in 776 BC, two centuries before Cleisthenes had even been born. Then they had been an exclusive competition for the wealthiest of the Greeks. But by Cleisthenes’ time, the games had evolved to allow anyone to take part. A nobleman now could race against a potter, a king against a fishmonger. Paul Cartledge: “The Olympic games were a chance for any Greeks to display the sort of heroic qualities that the heroes of Homer had displayed.” The competitions had their roots in the skills required on the ancient battlefield. Chariot racing, running, wrestling, boxing. But here there was no real prize, just a wreath of olives, and fame throughout Greece. Paul Cartledge: “A competitor would be surrounded by the largest gathering of Greeks in peace that he would ever experience. Perhaps as many as 40,000 Greeks would gather for the Olympic games.” Greeks would travel hundreds of miles to attend the Olympics, and during the festival, the land surrounding the stadiums would be covered with encampments. But the games were very much a male experience. Women were prohibited from entering the competitions, or even the stadium. But for the Greek man, whatever his origin or class, to win here would be the highlight of his life. Paul Cartledge: “You had briefly, a moment of glory, of extreme fame, which was what the competitive culture of the Greeks valued so highly.” Here the Greeks had perhaps found a civilized way to satisfy the heroic ideal. They had built a meritocracy based on skill and ability, where anyone could win. 41:00 – Isagoras and the Exile of Cleisthenes But a world where anyone could seize victory could only make Athens even more unstable. As soon as Cleisthenes gained power, he found that others were conspiring against him. Here heroism still meant one thing: seize power, whenever and however you can. Keith Hopwood: “The only rule is that you get what you can, and that you fight. You have to go in there and show that you can win.”
Episode One: “The Birth of Democracy” PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison 10 For Cleisthenes, the problem was how to give his fellow Athenians the say in their future that he knew they now must have. On an Athenian hillside, he had a great meeting place carved out from the bare rock. Here, in the shadow of the Acropolis, the citizens of Athens could now gather to discuss the future of their state. On these very steps, rich and poor alike could stand and address their fellow citizens. This is the ancestor of the British House of Commons, the American Congress, of parliaments across the world. And where government had once been decided by the strength of a sword arm, or the thrust of a sharpened spear, Cleisthenes instituted the simple vote. A white pebble for yes, a black pebble for no. And with this simple and elegant idea, Cleisthenes instituted the rule of the people, a system of government which we now know as democracy. The great Athenian assembly would gather every nine days on issues covering the entire administration of the state, from the raising of taxes to the building of roads, from the price of figs to the declaration of war. Paul Cartledge: “Athenian democracy is a very different sort of democracy from ours. One has a sense as an Athenian citizen that you really can make a difference. There is no us and them, there is no government separate from the ordinary Athenian citizen body. They are the government. Democracy represented a sharp break, and originally an elitist, heroic culture was now turned on its head, and the idea was that even ordinary Greeks who were not aristocratic, who were not rich, could be, as it were, heroes in politics.” It was a system of government that would transform this tiny state, and would set off one of the greatest flowerings of civilization that world has ever seen. The Athenians would take what had been the greatest achievements of the ancient world and transform them. They would take the monumental pyramids and temples of the Egyptian pharaohs and with them build an architecture of grace and splendor. They would take the myths and tales of the traveling bards and transform them in to theater, entertainment for a whole city. And the great stone sculptures of Assyria and Egypt would be remade with an intimacy and emotion that still touches us today. But just as Cleisthenes’ democracy was gaining strength, a new threat was gathering in the east, the mighty Persian Empire. The Persians were the greatest power of the day. They ruled an empire that stretched from India to the Mediterranean. But as Athens had grown in power and confidence, the Persians realized that this tiny state on their eastern border might soon pose a threat. They mobilized a force of 30,000 men to invade Greece immediately. Cleisthenes’ democracy, hardly born, was now to face its greatest test. [Series Written & Directed by Cassian Harrison]
